Chapter 34 - Paisley
Agent Pierce took another step closer as the sound of the door closing seemed to echo all throughout the small room. As frightening as Gavril Bocharov had been, I had to press my lips hard together to keep from screaming for him to come back.
I couldn’t look at Pierce anymore, not when his eyes were shining with malice, and worse than that.
He was excited about what he was about to do.
There was nothing I could use in this dim little room that would help me defend myself.
Nothing but dirty plaster walls, riddled with holes, and dusty concrete under my feet.
Rusty brown stains on the floor under my chair jumped out at me and the tears I had been holding back began to flow down my cheeks.
How many people had this monster tortured in this room before me? How many of them left it alive? And the question that I could barely stand to think, but rattled around in my terrorized mind like a trapped bird: how badly was this going to hurt?
“I swear I don’t know anything about what’s going on at Axon,” I said, pathetically wiping my nose on my sleeve. “I didn’t even really like any of those people on the list.”
I was desperate enough to claim I would forget what I saw, go into hiding, leave the country, whatever it took to stay alive.
Pierce watched me with the fascination of a young child following the journey of an ant as I babbled.
It was only the fleeting thought of Dan that made me shut up, halfway through one of my pleas.
His proud, almost cocky attitude about everything made me gather up my dignity and hold onto it for dear life.
All Pierce had done so far was stare at me in amusement.
Maybe I wasn’t about to be tortured. I looked him in the eyes, gripping the sides of the folding chair to try to hide my trembling, and said the one thing that mattered, in a clear, calm voice.
“I don’t know anything.”
He sighed, as if deeply disappointed. “We both know that’s not true.”
“I was a junior accountant and I only worked there a year. Nobody was telling me anything except to get my work done faster.”
“Why were you in David Caraggio’s office?” he asked.
Oh my God. This was all because that coward had run off at the first sign of trouble, and my freaking tyrant of a boss, Erica, didn’t believe he had told me to finish his work. I explained it all, as simply as I would have to little Pavel.
“Maybe he didn’t know he was next on the list,” I said. “I guess he thought he’d come back the next day and didn’t want his stupid report to be unfinished. I was only in there to do the work he told me to do.”
“And you just happened to find the list and put it all together?”
“Yes,” I said. “Why is that so hard to believe? Everyone there jokes about disappearing employees. You people aren’t that good at keeping your dirty secrets hidden.”
My head jolted back under the force of the slap. My jaw seemed like it would never return to the proper position and my ear rang from the crack of his palm against my cheek. Fresh tears burned in my eyes but I blinked them angrily away.
“That’s the truth,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Let’s say it is,” he said, crouching down and glaring at me. “Now tell me about the Fokins.”
“What about them?”
“Don’t play stupid,” he said, reaching for my throat. His hand rested there, not quite gripping so hard I couldn’t breathe, but enough to make me understand how easily he could snuff out my oxygen supply.
“I’m not playing,” I said, not meaning to be funny but making him laugh anyway. “I was filling in as a nanny for them.”
“On the same day you ran from Axon, after accidentally seeing something in an office you shouldn’t have been in, you also accidentally got this request to fill in as a nanny? For the Fokins.”
I shrugged. “I admit I was glad for the opportunity to get out of LA once I knew something shady was going on at Axon.”
He shook his head, seemingly amazed. “You’re pretty good at this. I almost believe you. But the fake dumb act is wearing thin.”
He reached into his pocket and I held my breath, waiting to see his gun return and pointed at my head. But this time he pulled out a knife, and shockingly, this was even more horrifying than the gun. Where his hand had rested, waiting to squeeze, he now gently dragged the blade across my throat.
The skin dragged and he laughed. “It’s not razor sharp, want to know why?” When I recoiled and shook my head, he told me anyway. “Because it hurts more when it’s dull. It’s more fun for me.”
“I’ve told you everything I know,” I said, feeling sick and faint, torn between needing to scream and shriveling into a ball on the dirty floor. Then it hit me. Why would he care at all about the Fokins? “I didn’t tell anyone that I worked at Axon. They don’t know anything about this.”
That was the first actual lie I had told, but I didn’t think my passing comment about having worked for the accounting firm to Dan was important. Certainly not important enough to put him in danger. At least I hoped not.
For some reason Agent Pierce found this hilarious. “Do you really think I believe you didn’t tell Aleks Fokin anything about Axon? When I have to believe he was the sole reason you were working there in the first place? Then the second you know something you go running back to your boss about it?”
Nothing he said made sense anymore. It was as good as gibberish to me. The urge to throw up was so strong it almost distracted me from my fear. I leaned over, ignoring his knife, pressing my head between my knees and gulping air.
He yanked me up by a fistful of my hair. Oh God, I was going to throw up all over him. I actually felt dizzy and slammed my eyes closed against his snarling face.
“Do you think you’re protecting them?” he shouted, shaking my head like it wasn’t attached to my body.
My scalp burned when he finally let go, panting with rage.
He got so close I could feel his hot breath as he huffed at me.
He wasn’t making sense, but he hadn’t been since he started questioning me about the Fokins in the car.
Why was he so concerned with them? Even if I knew anything, why would I tell my temporary employers about a mass murder plot?
They’d think I was crazy and I’d be out the door.
I worked so hard not to puke that I didn’t realize I was crying. Not just from the pain this rotten FBI agent inflicted on me, but because of pure frustration that he refused to believe the simple truth.
“I told you everything I know,” I said, gulping back the tears. Putting my face in my hands, I shook my head. “I swear it.”
He jerked one hand away from my face and slammed it to my side.
A second later I felt cold metal wrapping around my wrist, clicking until it was uncomfortably tight.
Another click and I was cuffed to the chair.
He made scuff marks in the dust all around me, then grabbed the back of my head, forcing me to look down at them.
“If I come back and find you’ve moved this chair even one inch outside these lines, you’re going to wish you didn’t.”
There were a lot of things I wished I hadn’t done, going all the way back to not quitting Axon months ago. I was too broken to say it, fearing he would think I was clapping back. I kept my chin on my chest, praying I’d wake up and realize this was all a bad dream brought on by too much stress.
“Did you hear me?” he asked, knocking me in the side of the head.
“Yes,” I murmured. “I won’t move.”
“Good. Now I’ll give you some time to ponder whether your life is more important than the people you work for.”
“I don’t give a damn about anyone at Axon,” I said. If I lived through this I vowed to send an anonymous text message to my old cubicle neighbor, Leslie, telling her to get out and never look back, and then I hoped never to hear their wretched name again.
Pierce chuckled. “You’re good, I’ll give you that. A consummate liar. Whoever trained you would be proud. But you know damn well I’m talking about the Fokins. You must be in pretty deep to be going so far to cover for them.”
I looked up, feeling like my head weighed twice what it should. “They’re just a family I was babysitting for,” I said. New fear welled up at the rejuvenated gleam in his eyes. “And I swear to you they don’t know anything about Axon. They wouldn’t even know it exists.”
He laughed again. “You’re not going to live long enough to get a bonus, Miss Moore. Not that they’ll be around much longer, either.”
And like a damn supervillain from the kind of movies I absolutely hated, he laughed all the way out the door.
Even after he slammed me into the room, trapped in my dust-marked spot, I could hear his evil laughter all the way until he was out of the warehouse, the lonely clang of the big metal door sounding like a death knoll.
I covered my mouth with my free hand, trying to keep from hyperventilating.
What did he mean by his last taunt? Why was he so dead set on believing the Fokins had anything to do with whatever was making Axon pick off its employees?
I let out the scream that had been welling up in me, the sound deafening in the small room.
I thought I was as scared as I had ever been when he was threatening me, but now that I thought he was going after that sweet family, utterly unaware of the danger they were in, it felt like I would crack into pieces.
Damn Agent Pierce and his threats. I gathered the shreds of strength and sanity that still remained in me and stood, folding up the chair and tucking it under my arm as best I could without twisting my wrist out of the socket.
I looked at the marks in the dust he made with his promise that I’d regret stepping out of them.
I remembered the look he gave me as he dragged the dull knife across my skin.
And then I headed toward the door.